Ashford Hospitality Trust Inc’s (NYSE:$AHT) 8.45% Series D Cumulative Preferred Stock will trade ex-dividend on September 28. Shareholders before the cut-off date can expect a dividend of $0.53 to be paid on October 16. The dividend works out to about 2.04% of the recent share price of $25.89. The current yield is roughly 8.19% on an annualized basis, compared to the ‘Real Estate’ preferred stock average yield of 6.49% according to Preferred Stock Channel.

Ashford Hospitality Trust is an externally advised real estate investment trust – or REIT. They focus on United States hotels at the upscale and upper-upscale level.

Ashford traded up to $6.58, a 1.23% increase, during Tuesday trading. The company’s market cap sits at $641.09 million, and it also had a trading volume of 162,638 shares. Ashford currently has 50 and 200-day moving averages of $6.19 and $6.24 respectively. The company’s 52-week low and highs are $5.35 and $8.23.

Several institutional investors also recently altered their stakes in the stock:

• Arrow Investment Advisors LLC bought 25,400 shares for a total of 109,512 shares valued at $666,000, a 30.2% increase and representing 0.11% ownership of the company.
• Ironwood Investment Management LLC bought 2,500 shares, increasing its stake for 1.1% for a total of 239,550 shares worth $1,456,000.
• BNP Paribas Arbitrage SA bought 1,121 shares – a 2.7% increase – during the first quarter for a total of 42,940 shares valued at $274,000.
• Nationwide Fund bought 2,479 shares the last quarter, an increase of 0.5% for a grand total of 476,446 valued at $3,035,000.
• Eqis Capital Management Inc. increased their share by 5.8% with a purchase of 1,481 for a total of 27,113 shares valued at $165,000, during the second quarter.
• Los Angeles Capital Management & Equity Research Inc increased its holdings by 4.8% with a purchase of 2,200 shares for a total of 47,974 worth $306,000 during the first quarter.

Ashford announced its quarterly earnings previously on August 3rd. The company reported a $0.52 EPS, which was $0.03 cents higher than earlier estimates. In the same quarter last year, Ashford $0.60 and analysts predict an annualized earning of -$1.10. it also came in just under forecasts of $399.01 million with $390.70 million revenue for the quarter.

The firm also announced a dividend to be paid out on October 16th to shareholders on record as of September 30th. It will receive a $0.12 dividend. The ex-dividend date is set for September 28th. This translates to an annualized $0.48 dividend and a yield of 7.42%. The payout ratio is -35.82%.

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